Before Buddha….

Listening
 
Before Buddha
before Christ, before Mohammed, before the idea of Shiva…
before Caesar, before Hannibal, Emperor Yong Zheng,
Genghis Kahn
Kubla Kahn…
Before Charlemagne, William the Conqueror,
The Battle of Clontarf, the Battle of the Boyne,
Gettysburg; before the bomb drop on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki….
Before the Crusades, the Dark Ages, the
Age of Enlightenment…
Before all human interventions,
ego strategies, elevations, declinations,
births/deaths, all the building up,
tearing down, the rise and fall of Great Men,
Great Civilizations, Great Movements,
Insurrections, Cries for Liberty, Wars of Outrage,
Banners of Manipulations, Scrolls of Distrust…
Before all of these and
Before all of those…
stardust became tree dust.
 
You and I stand beneath behemoths…
throw our heads back and gasp.
I reach for you; you steady the vertigo swells
rippling up and down my organic shell.
We look at one another and simply smile:
Light, dancing.
Wonder needs no words, no definitions.
 
Up and up and up ~ Redwoods reach and rise.
Timeless towers, antennae spiraling energy out, into
universal spaces.
Universal Graces.
 
You and I exchange information each time we
speak or touch or laugh or cry ~ but we are no
leviathans, breathing sanctity out
breathing in the toxins of some lessor beings, as do they….
Breathe God’s Breath.
 
With you, I have experienced a
depth of wonder, a bliss of joy…
thunder of awe.
We help each other understand.  As it should be.
Be.
 
Be.
 
 
(thank you Peter McKinnon, for taking me to hear the California Redwoods)
by Barbara Helvey Hughes, ©2020